Worn Thin
by Athena's phoenix
Summary: Ciel flaunted his family name and hung a portrait of his parents in a place of honor; none who entered the manor house could avoid seeing the regal, venerated figures that looked down from above the staircase. The amount of pride, the amount of stock Ciel put in his family was obvious. But nowhere, neither seen nor mentioned, was his brother. [ʙᴜᴛ нᴏᴡ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ нᴇ ғᴏʀɢᴇᴛ нɪᴍ?]


It startled her when she noticed the missing pictures. Oh, Ciel would flaunt his family name and hang a portrait of his parents in a place of honor; none who entered the manor house could avoid seeing the regal, venerated figures that looked down from above the staircase. The amount of pride, the amount of stock Ciel put in his family was obvious. But nowhere, neither seen nor mentioned, was his brother.

Lizzie's parents, Edward, and Auntie Ann all tiptoed around the subject when Ciel returned alone; when, at the merest mention, Ciel was willing to let the silence sit heavy and stifling rather than respond. But it had been _six months_ , and Ciel seemed determined to forget that he had ever been anything other than an only child, that he had ever been the sweet, adoring older brother that Lizzie had loved to catch glimpses of. It tore at her, this seeming coldness towards the memory of the youngest Phantomhive, when the boy had never been anything but kind and equally adoring towards his brother. And finally it came to a head, when Ciel was at the Midfords' for brunch; his eyes had lit upon the line of photographs set upon one of the tables in the drawing room, and for the briefest moment he looked stricken. Lizzie followed his gaze to a hinged frame that held a picture of each twin, watched his eye widen and face crumple before smoothing over as he turned away with a grimace, and her breath caught in her throat.

"Why are you trying to _forget him_?" she choked out, and his eye flashed to hers. "How can you just ignore his existence like this? Why—you _love_ him! Ci-Ciel, I know you love him more than anyone, so why won't you acknowledge that _he was here?_ "

Ciel's blue eye was _wide, wide, wide,_ and his breath wheezed out of his chest as if she'd hit him, but Lizzie couldn't stop, couldn't ignore the loss of her youngest cousin, couldn't ignore how Ciel pushed away and pushed away his grief.

"How can you keep insulting his memory like this—what _happened_ to you, Ciel? I know he was your _world—_ the Ciel I know would _never_ be willing to give his brother up, even—even if all he had left was a _memory!"_

Heavy, aching tears were rolling down her flushed cheeks, and her hands had fisted in her skirts, their sweaty grip pressing wrinkles into the muslin. Opposite her, Ciel had gone deathly pale, his eye sitting huge and dark in his face and his lips parted as if to speak. Fine shudders ran down his frame, and he suddenly looked small, too young for his stiff, dark suit and the eyepatch that dominated his face. Lizzy took a stumbling step towards him, her fingers prying away from her dress to clutch his shoulders, pulling him into her.

"I _miss_ him," she gasped into his dark hair, "And I—I know you must miss him _even more;_ I don't know how you can bear to be without him; how you can bear to _forget_ him like this—!"

Their combined weight bore them to their knees, and Ciel rested his face against her shoulder as his hands laid limp at his sides. His breath hissed through his teeth.

"I can't," he whispered. "I can't. I can't bear—that's _why—!"_

He curled into her embrace and said no more.

The children knelt alone on the floor of the floor of the drawing room, their harsh breaths loud in the silence. Somewhere in the house, the deep tone of a grandfather clock echoed through the halls.

"I'm sorry," Lizzie said, and she was glad she couldn't see his face.

"I'm sorry," she said, and held him tighter.

* * *

A/N: ...Not much to say. This was mostly me musing over how oCiel hid the fact that he had a brother, and what people who knew the twins must have thought. Because it was pretty obvious that rCiel loved oCiel a whole damn lot.


End file.
